Focus: The Internet

The Internet is taking over our lives—talk about world domination; it has won.

The Internet is taking over our
lives—talk about world domination; it has won. Advertisements on
TV, billboards, essentially anywhere, all carry the familiar
www.dot.com. It has become de rigueur for a
business to have its own web site. And customers are finding these
sites and using them. I buy DVDs, flowers and cards on the
Internet; a co-worker buys her groceries there; another does all
his gift shopping. The day may come when department and grocery
stores are no longer needed, and it might not be very far off.

Statistics show that maybe 30% of U.S. households have
computers with access to the Net. This is going to go up rapidly in
the next few years as Internet appliances—computers for the
computer-illiterate—come to the market. These book-size computers
will offer Internet connectivity, and not much more. They will be
as easy to use as a VCR. People who never thought about buying a
computer before will buy one to find out why everyone is talking
about and using the Web. Then they will be hooked too—just like
the rest of us.

A company that is betting on this is OE/ONE, and I talked to
Mr. Eid Eid about his new start-up and the innovative software they
are building for this potentially lucrative appliance market. Mr.
Eid is a very personable and forward-thinking man with some
interesting ideas about how the Internet will be used in the
future.

QoS

Quality of Service support in the kernel has created a new
controversy for our community. ISPs now have a way to control
traffic so that those who pay more can have priority over those who
don't, getting faster connections and faster response times to
problems. Linus created Linux and gave it to the community through
the Internet. Programmers develop code and share it through the
Internet. Without the Internet, Linux would not exist. The Internet
has always been a place where all are equal. There is now the
possibility that will not always be true.